Business Reporter
NetOne, Zimbabwe’s second largest mobile network operator, in partnership with various local media players will host a conference on digital media, which has particular focus on digital broadcasting, digital publishing and digital marketing. Dubbed “Digital Future”, the conference takes place on March 17-18 and brings together local and international stakeholders in what is being dubbed as “Zimbabwe’s largest gathering of digital minds”.
Some of the speakers that will grace the occasion include Minister of ICT;, Supa Mandiwanzira; Teju Ajani, YouTube’s Head of Content Partnerships for Sub-Saharan Africa; Nyasha Mtsekwa, Aflix’s Head of Business Development; Gelfand Kausiyo, non-executive director at the ZBC and Edith Utete, a legal practitioner with expertise in ICT law.
With only a few months before the digital migration deadline, the conference is expected to explore the implementation of this process as well as outline the opportunities it will bring to the local media fraternity.
Recent media reports suggest that Zimbabwe is lagging behind in the digitalisation exercise with Transmedia, the Government entity tasked with delivering digital transmitters across the country, already conceding that they would need an additional six months from the June 17 deadline to achieve complete analogue switch- off.
Apart from the technical challenges, the broadcasters need to think about content. Once the pipe has been created, what will fill that pipe?
ZBC is expected to have capacity to carry on more than 20 channels and has already started engaging local content creators to do production for these channels. It will obviously take a lot from content creators to meet the quality expected in the digital age and the quantity to satisfy the capacity that will become available.
NetOne has also been actively involved in the process of digital migration with the purchase of an analogue spectrum to the tune of $200 million, money which is expected to fund the digital migration process for the nation.